I look forward to this every year: Keith Law has released his annual 100 top prospects list. Yes, it’s only for those with an Insider subscription, but at the risk of promoting the business of a competing sports network/conglomerate, I would submit to you that Law’s work is worth the price of a subscription itself, assuming you have the means.

I shan’t give away his list — you really should read it — but know that for the second year in a row he has the Angels’ Mike Trout first and Bryce Harper second. He also has a pretty good quote about Jesus Montero that I intend to steal and adapt for use of other defensively-challenged players (“As a catcher, Montero is not a catcher”). He also depresses me by noting that Braves prospect Arodys Vizaino is a great prospect as a starter when I suspect that Atlanta is gonna keep him in the pen.

Clear your calendar, folks. This is an annual must-read. And something that, if you care at all about prospects, which you should, you will go back and reference dozens of times throughout the season.

Next to the discussions about Hall of Fame inductions, this is my least favorite time of the baseball calendar…where there is a ton of baseball content relating to prospects, etc. It is all bullshit. I know Keith Law spends a ridiculous amount of time researching and watching these kids and probably does about as well at these “rankings” as one can do but it is still all nonsense. It is just meaningless drivel. I mean, who cares who is the 10th rated prospect in all of baseball? Certainly not I…it is just more content meant to drive meaningless conversations about dumb ass shit. Now we can have the conversation, that so and so shouldn’t be ranked ahead of so and so because of blah blah blah. Fuck that…give me games!!!!!!!…….. or a Ryan Howard discussion.

My support that it is meaningless bullshit should be fairly obvious…this lists never play to form. It is just conjecture and projections that are based upon speculation and impossible to account for the many variables that have an impact on performance. Hence, rankings of potential future performance is meant as pure speculative bullshit. Might as well throw darts at a wall to pick the order. Just nonsense. So, I suppose I am sorry that you were unable to comprehend my “assertion” and “statement”. I mean, feel free to have your retort as to why these lists are important and the least bit meaningful other than to have dumb ass discussions about where these players fall on a rather arbitrary list.

Prospects fail fairly often, so perhaps I can understand where you’re coming from. But it’s not pure guesswork. No, the top 10 prospects are never, in order, the top 10 players from that list once they hit the majors. We’re dealing in likelihoods, yes… but strong likelihoods. Players like Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg rarely fail to become stars. And when you go down the list, you’re talking about less and less likelihood of star power.

The rankings are pretty good at projecting those chances. Rarely is a player from the top 10 not at least an average player, and rarely does a player at the bottom of a top 100 list become a star.

If you’re not interested in future baseball players, by all means, read another article. But you’ve got it backwards: if they perfectly accounted for the many variables that have an impact on performance, there would be no need for discussion. It’s because we’re working on limited statistical and scouting information and trying to weigh the variables that will lead to future stardom or these players that discussion is interesting and necessary.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:19 AM

Play to form meaning accurate. I’d rather have the discussion about the nature and utility of the lists than whether so and so should be rated higher than other so and so. Furthermore, why do you need Keith Law to tell you who your team has in the minors? I can tell you virtually every young player in the Phillies minor league system, how they fared last season, and where they will start this season….and I’ve never read a top 100 prospect list.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:27 AM

Ari,
Of course I am interested in baseball futures… particularly that of the Phillies (of which I hear the future is murky at best) . The point is though that these lists are just discussion fodder and I still feel are rather arbitrary despite the amount of effort and research done in making the lists. It should be noted that this is not a criticism of the authors of these lists, just a criticism of the inherent nature of rankings lists in general.

paperlions - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:43 AM

You are right.

Also complete bullshit, team rankings and division standings. They are bullshit because the teams that win the most games rarely win the World Series.

Seriously though, if you don’t understand the utility of prospect rankings/discussions…then you should probably just refrain from reading or commenting about them.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:46 AM

Paper,
Don’t be an ass. Their only utility is that of discussion fodder. Other than that they are meaningless. I suppose they have utility in some type of long term fantasy baseball leagues as well. So, outside of that what is their utility? I have yet to have somebody give me an answer to that.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:47 AM

Also, yeah team “power rankings” are complete bullshit. Obviously divisional standings are not because that is how one gets to play at the craps table known as the playoffs.

The Dangerous Mabry - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Doctor, you may know a lot about the Phillies’ stable of prospects, and good on you for that, even though there may be information in a list like this that you may be unaware of. But how much do you know about the Marlins’ prospects? The Pirates? The Diamondbacks? The Tigers? For people who are interested in players all around the league, something like this can be a very simple way to see who’s got what, and how likely they are to pan out. And even if you’re not a fan of those teams, you might be a fan of a team that competes against them, or potentially a fan of a team that might trade with them. If you’re not interested in knowing who’s out there, then this isn’t for you. If you want to know more about the league as a whole, then this might give you some information about what you can reasonably expect to see in the next year or so.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:10 PM

Mabry,
Those are good points. Fair enough. Personally, I read the phuture phillies blog which does a good job of breaking down their prospects. They also put out a list but note that it is mostly arbitrary and subject to frequent tinkering. My point on that is, I doubt anything Keith Law says about any future Phillie would be something I haven’t read or heard before. I care about other teams and players they have in their system. I just don’t buy into a numerical ranking system. It is the general concept of rankings like this that I have issue with.

paperlions - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:43 PM

Dr., after that pathetic rant up there, you are going to tell me not to be an ass?

You didn’t say anything that was worthy of a serious response.

I read everything at Future Redbirds, but 1) Law is actually a professional trained scout, 2) watches games and has discussions with other scouts, 3) sees far more players in person, and 4) has no reason to be biased. All of which make his takes on Cardinal prospects more informative and less rose-colored glass tinted than what you will find on a team-specific prospect blog.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:50 PM

My rant wasn’t directed at you…it was directed at a concept. You are the one with the passive aggressiveness directed specifically at me.

paperlions - Feb 9, 2012 at 1:15 PM

Who the rant was directed at is irrelevant. You were being an ass.

If you started out civil and inquired what it was that people found interesting, you might have had some more reasoned responses. But you didn’t….you essentially said “I don’t know and I don’t care”….why should anyone bother with a serious response to that?

Sorry someone pissed in your wheaties; hope tomorrow is better.

The Dangerous Mabry - Feb 9, 2012 at 1:43 PM

It may interest you to know that in addition to rankings, there are about 200 words describing each prospect, usually discussing their history, their current status, issues they need to address in order to be successful major leaguers, and some indications of where a player might end up overall. I don’t think most people who are looking forward to this report are just looking to see numbers; it’s more about learning about the prospects themselves than seeing if they’re #72 or #77. Why rank them then? Well, you need to cut it off somewhere, so 100 is a reasonable number, and if you’re going to have a group of 100, you’ve got to present them in some kind of order, so why not rank them based on your expectations so people can quickly get a feel for what kind of prospect they’re looking at?

Yes, I can see that by the ratio of thumbs up versus thumbs downs. Thank you for pointing that out though…it does indeed prove that you are familiar with the most basic of numerical concepts. I’m just fucking with ya…I don’t really care if most people disagree with me. It is my opinion and I don’t think a ridiculous or irrational one.

cur68 - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:48 PM

Never stops you Brad, m’boy. Thought you’d admire ‘Army’s tenacity.

jwbiii - Feb 9, 2012 at 8:06 PM

Politely ask the guy who is holding the gun to your head and making you read things you don’t want to to go away. Then you won’t have to read those things.

I look forward to these lists, because as an Orioles fan, I have to perpetually hope that the future will get better. Hopefully with 2 of the top 10 prospects in the game (2 of the top 11 in Law’s list) it will. But I have a question, has anyone taken any of these top prospect lists from 3-5 years ago and seen which of the prospects have panned out? That’s an article or comparison I’ld like to see.

I can’t even use on Firefox at work, it literally freezes the browser completely (even after a ff upgrade). I use IE (we can’t get Chrome) and it’s workable but still shitty and pauses every five seconds. I use Chrome at home on my mac and it’s fine.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 11:52 AM

I was reading about a problem that involves the Shockwave player or something like that. Often times, it causes the browsers to crash because somehow 2 get loaded onto the computer and they get conflicted with each other or something. I disabled one and now it works much better. Google the phrase “shockwave flash crash” and they explain the problem and whatnot. Huge problem with firefox. I know I did a poor job of explaining the problem. I know little to nothing about computers.

That’s bologna and “meaningless” support of your position. Analysis of top prospect lists from previous seasons generally shows a good correlation between the relative performances of the higher rated prospects compared to the lower rated ones.

And the fact that you see no value in such lists doesn’t make them meaningless, nonsense or arbitrary.

Sure it does….what value is attached to the list? Do individual teams hold prospects in greater value because of what Keith Law says? I would hope they would use their own scouts to do evaluations. So, where precisely is the value in his list other than for baseball fans to discuss the list? And it is very arbitrary. Can you honestly tell me that 25-100 aren’t random names stuck behind numbers…that it is conceivable to separate out players to that degree of precision? Hence, the list is rather arbitrary which makes it nonsense.

If you read the article that Ari posted (an excellent article by the way) you’ll find that the correlation between ranking and production is not all that strong. (Here’s where the Sabr newsletter annoys the heck out of me by the way, for a bunch of very smart people they love to make conclusions without any sort of rigorous analysis. I mean seriously, how hard would it have been to do a regression analysis on this data set?). If anything it helps support some of Doc’s points of view.

In the article the author looks at 10 years worth of BA top 100 lists, and breaks down the eventual career of the players on the list into one of four categories: star, everyday player, contributor and bust. No particular criteria is given for the categories, but realistically none are needed as long as the same criteria are used for all players.

Hitters are far easier to rate than pitchers. With hitters there is a solid correlation between ranking and eventual performance. With pitchers, eh, not so much.

A player on the top 100 prospect list has a greater chance of being a bust than a star or even a every day player. The higher on the list, the more likely a hitter is to be an everyday player. No such correlation for pitchers. The only category where a player is more likely to be at least an everyday player than a bust: hitters ranked 1-10.

The missing control here is the level of performance for players who never appeared on a top 100 prospect list.

When I was a teen I learned the saying “if it smells like trout, pull it out, and if it smells like salmon, keep on jammin'” Thought that may be relevant here. And yes, I grew up in a small town…and no, I haven’t actually grown up…

So, I’ve asked this questions several times and gotten no answer other then “You are wrong” but what is the utility of these rankings outside of discussion fodder? Somebody please give me a constructive answer other than just telling me I’m an idiot.

The use is for us fans to get some inside information on who is likely to be successful or not at the major league level. We don’t have the time to see these players, nor the scouting background or analytical background to know what to look for in projecting future talent. These rankings give us some idea of the likelihood of future stardom in our favorite sport and with our favorite team(s).

If you want to look at biased Phillies lists instead, go ahead. But they are less informed and often don’t give you a good or accurate sense of where your teams’ prospects rank among the pool of minor league talent baseball-wise.

Sorry drmonkey but you really did come off as a bit angry to me. The number of times you posted on what you referred to as a uselss topic kinda made me feel that way. Good luck to your phils they got the upper hand in nl east for a few more years at least i would say, i would not worry about farm so much until then.

I’m not angry, I just want to know what the point of these rankings are outside of for discussion. Still waiting for that answer. The answer to why I am posting so much on this topic is that I am currently at work and bored. I will probably get busy again in like half an hour and will cease to post.

They serve the exact same purpose of every other ranking. To combine many kinds of data into a single dimension for purposes of comparison.

Again, if you don’t see the point and don’t care. Then don’t read them or bother polluting the thread with comments about how you don’t care…and let those that do care have an actual discussion.

drmonkeyarmy - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:47 PM

Yeah Paper…. I can tell that people want to have a real discussion about it judging by the amount of comments relating to individual rankings. So, the sole purpose of them is for discussion. Fair enough. That was my question.

24missed - Feb 9, 2012 at 1:58 PM

Dr.

You rock. Good for you for standing by your beliefs. And asking for real studies and information to back up the opposing viewpoints. Researchers have tons of data to support their positions and you are just asking for some and hey, maybe more than one study or more to validate the list.

We are all entitled to our own opinions.

cur68 - Feb 9, 2012 at 12:51 PM

Craig: Excellent use of the word “shan’t” there. One of my fave’s. Glad to see another appreciator of the Olde English still practicing.

In our keeper sim league we went for Montero over Trout. Very simply, Trout’s small sample in MLB last year indicated that Montero was more major league ready, whereas it was our expectation that Trout would require at least another year to develop into a useable player. Montero went late in the first round, Trout early in the second. We had a good debate about where Harper and Moore would have gone had they been in our draft, with the consensus that both would have been chosen ahead of Trout.

As discussed in the mlb.com top 100 post on this blog, mlb.com is the outlier. They are not a systematic nor objective source. Banuelos is more often seen in the 30-ish range, or even lower.

That said, the rankings are, of course, subjective, involving different methodologies and a different pool of scouts and inside sources, and you should always read the individuals’ arguments and decide whose thinking most aligns with yours.

The more and more these individual rankings of players appears the more and more I’m convinced the only thing that matters is how each team looks at and evaluates their own prospects. But hey that’s just my opinion.

cur68 - Feb 9, 2012 at 2:14 PM

Here’s a good exercise (for someone else, of course. I waste enough time thinking up semi-literate, badly punctuated comments): average all the rankings for a given player. That’ll be about what they really are, I’m betting.

I’m not just pulling this idea out of the air, BTW. Its based on some reading I was doing. Specifically The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations which was published in 2004 by James Surowiecki.
The whole idea is underpinned by Galton’s experiment in which he noticed that a sufficiently large number of people, of broad demographics, all of whom guessed a number based by some out of knowledge, some out of gut feeling, when averaged, produced a very accurate result of outcome. If this applies to something as tricky as performance which is subject to the vagaries of chance, injury, random park factors etc is very much open for debate, of course. Be neat to find out though.

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged - Feb 9, 2012 at 8:01 PM

The different methodologies is huge, as someone like Keith Law wrote:• When ranking players, I consider scouting reports on players — usually my own, supplementing with conversations with other scouts and front-office executives as needed — as well as performance, adjusted for age and context. I’ve made one adjustment in my ranking philosophy in recent years, favoring higher-upside prospects over lower-ceiling prospects who are closer to the majors. This better reflects how these players are valued now by front offices and scouting departments, and gives me a chance to deliver more information on prospects whose names or scouting reports might be new to you.

Others make rank those who will make it to the pros faster rather than ceiling guys, or a combination of the two, so a simple comparison wouldn’t necessarily work.

cur68 - Feb 9, 2012 at 9:20 PM

Using averaged score the way Galton used averaged guessing means that it doesn’t matter how the various bodies arrived at their guess as to the player’s rank. It only matters that the scale the guess was placed on was the same. In the original ‘experiment’ Galton noted that at a county fair the average guess of all guessers (children, the vicar, wandering madmen and the experts) was closer to the true weight of a butchered ox than what the various experts (butchers, farmers, professional guessers etc) guessed from looking at the ox pre-butchered. So, using this methodology, it’s immaterial how the various groups arrive where they do, only that they all use the same final ranking system (1-100 best prospects in order, say).

Whether such a scoring system holds up on a final product that is subject to so many outside influences is an open question but one worth investigating, I think.

My friend there are many ways to build a team, not just solely through the farm system. But to be honest I’m not sure the Royals are the team you want to hold up as a shining example of one built through their farm system. What have they had 1 winning season in the past 17 or 18 years? And in 8 of those seasons they have lost 95 games or more.

I feel I’m a little late to the party on this debate. Stupid work has been occupying my time. And by work I mean being preoccupied by PECTOA and the debate within. If you don’t like prospect lists that’s fine, but plenty of people do enjoy them. And posting the same thing about how you don’t see their utility is kinda lame (sorry if I’m misinterpreting your intent Dr). I concur with nolanwiffle above: it’s February-this stuff is awesome in February. (As an aside I don’t think how the top 100 prospects develop -i.e. all stars, good regular etc- has anything to do with sabermetrics wls.)

I’m sure someone posted this above but for me anyway, I enjoy reading about minor league players and those that can maybe one day be stars (or really good players). I feel more informed as a baseball fan because of it and it really helps in fantasy dynasty leagues.

For what it’s worth, on the Baseball Today podcast today, Law talked about his rankings and addressed why it’s harder to rank pitchers. And on more than one occasion on their podcast KG and Parks have discussed why prospects are not on a list one year and then jump up really high the next.